In recent years, the study of methods for the reduction of the amount of waste water from processing has been under way out of the necessity to inhibit water contamination and to reduce processing cost. These methods have been put into practical use in certain processing steps. In particular, with respect to color development, which causes much contamination, various approaches have been proposed. For example, the approach described in JP-A No. 54-37731, JP-A No. 56-1048, JP-A No. 56-1049, JP-A No. 56-27142, JP-A No. 56-33644, and JP-A No. 56-149036 (the term "JP-A" as used herein refers to a "published unexamined Japanese patent application"), and JP-B No. 61-10199 (the term "JP-B" as used herein refers to an "examined Japanese patent publication") comprises the utilization of electrodialysis. In addition, various color developer regeneration methods have been proposed. For example, JP-B-55-1571 and JP-A No. 58-14831 propose the use of activated carbon to regenerate the color developer. JP-A No. 52-105820 proposes the use of ion exchange membranes. JP-A No. 55-144240, JP-A No. 57-146249 and JP-A No. 61-95352 propose the use of ion exchange resins.
However, these methods are disadvantageous in that they all need an analysis and proper control of the composition of the color developer, requiring a high degree of control and expensive apparatus. As a result, these methods have been put into practical use only in certain large scale processing laboratories.
In another method which does not utilize the regeneration of color developer, the composition of the replenisher of the color developer (hereinafter referred to as "color developer replenisher") is properly adjusted so that the replenishment rate can be reduced. In this method, the adjustment of the composition of the color developer replenisher is accomplished by, e.g., concentrating consumable components such as the color developing agent and preservative so that the required amount of necessary components can be supplied even if the replenishment rate is reduced. When a silver halide color photographic material is processed, halogen ions are released into the color developer. In processing at a reduced replenishment rate, the bromide ion concentration in the color developer increases, inhibiting development. Accordingly, in order to inhibit the increase in the bromide ion concentration, the bromide concentration in the replenisher is predetermined at a value lower than normal.
This low replenishment processing is advantageous in that it leads to inhibition of water pollution and reduction in processing cost. This processing is also advantageous in that it can be effected without careful analysis of the composition of the processing solution.
On the other hand, in recent years, with the spread of the small service system called "minilaboratories" (i.e., small-sized laboratories), it has been keenly demanded to reduce the time required for processing so as to rapidly serve of customers.
Particularly, a reduction in desilvering time that accounts for the majority of the conventional processing time has been strongly desired.
However, this processing was found disadvantageous in that when the color developer replenishment rate is drastically reduced, the delay in fixing becomes more remarkable at the desilvering step following the color development step, particularly the delay in rapid fixing in which the fixing time for processing a silver halide color photographic material with a processing solution having a fixing ability is reduced to 2 minutes or less become more remarkable at the desilvering step following the color development step, and the discoloration of yellow dye occurs with time after processing. The color developer replenishment rate depends on the type of light-sensitive material to be processed. For color negative films for photography, the replenishment rate is normally in the range of about 1,200 ml per m.sup.2 of the light-sensitive material. These color negative films suffer from the above troubles when the replenishment rate is reduced to 600 ml or less per m.sup.2 of the material.
Thus, the above mentioned low replenishment processing is advantageous in its simplicity but disadvantageous in that the drastic reduction in the replenishment rate is limited (e.g., 600 ml/m.sup.2 for color negative films for photographing).